Embodiments of the invention include a system and method for providing high quality voice/sound communications over a local loop of a telephone network. The method aspect of the invention comprises receiving a voice signal, digitizing the voice signal into a high quality voice signal, utilizing sampling rates greater than 8000 samples per second and/or sample sizes greater than 8 bits per sample, negotiating voice processing characteristics between a customer premises equipment and a network element such as a softswitch, receiving speech from a user at a customer premises equipment according to the negotiation, converting the received speech into high bandwidth signal and transmitting the high bandwidth signal to a telephone local loop, transmitting the high bandwidth signal from the local loop to wideband node that packetizes the high bandwidth signal for transmission to a packet network and receiving the packetized signal from the packet network at a switch that switches between an on-network or off-network status. A voice over IP platform may also be used to route packetized signals from the packet network to either the telephone network or another packet network.
Legal claims defining the scope of protection, as filed with the USPTO.
1. A system for providing high quality sound communications, the system comprising: means for negotiating between a computing device and a network element characteristics associated with sound reception and transmission; means for receiving a first sound signal at the computing device and transmitting a second sound signal from the computing device to a telephone local loop, the second sound signal comprising a high quality sound signal associated with the first sound signal; means for digitizing the first sound signal into the high quality sound signal, utilizing sampling rates greater than 8000 samples per second and/or sample sizes greater than 8 bits per sample; means for receiving the high quality sound signal from the telephone local loop and transmitting a packetized signal to a packet network, the packetized signal generated from the received high quality sound signal; and means for receiving the packetized signal from the packet network and switching between an on-network and off-network status.
2. The system of claim 1 , wherein when the means for switching switches to an off-net status, the packetized signal is transmitted to a telephone network.
3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the telephone network is the publicly switched telephone network.
4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the means for transmitting the packetized signal to the packet network further comprises a voice over IP network.
5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the means for transmitting the packetized signal to the packet network further comprises an asynchronous transfer mode network.
6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the means for transmitting the packetized signal to the packet network further comprises means for transmitting the packetized signal over an Ethernet network.
7. The system of claim 1 , wherein when the means for switching switches to an on-network status, a call is transmitted from a first computing device to a second computing device without using a telephone network.
8. The system of claim 7 , wherein when the means for switching switches the system to an off-network status, a call is transmitted from the first computing device to the second computing device through a telephone network.
9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the network element is a softswitch.
10. The system of claim 1 , wherein the negotiated characteristics associated with sound reception and transmission comprise at least one of: sound compression, sound coding, signal sampling rate, and a signal transmission rate.
11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the negotiated characteristics associated with sound reception and transmission comprise technical capabilities of a calling party computing device.
12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the negotiated characteristics associated with sound reception and transmission further comprise the technical capabilities of a called party computing device.
13. The system of claim 1 , wherein the negotiated characteristics associated with sound reception and transmission relate to network capabilities.
14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the negotiated characteristics associated with sound reception and transmission further relate to network bottlenecks.
15. The system of claim 1 , wherein the means for switching of the high quality sound signal utilizes time domain switching.
16. The system of claim 15 , wherein the time domain switching uses an ISDN transport.
17. A method for providing high bandwidth communications, the method comprising, in a communications network: negotiating sound processing characteristics between a computing device and a network element; receiving a first sound signal at the computing device according to the negotiation; receiving a digitized version of the first sound signal, wherein the first sound signal is digitized into a second sound signal comprising a high quality sound signal, utilizing sampling rates greater than 8000 samples per second and/or sample sizes greater than 8 bits per sample; transmitting the high quality sound signal to a wideband node that packetizes the high quality sound signal to yield a packetized signal for transmission to a packet network; and receiving the packetized signal from the packet network at a switch that switches between an on-network or off-network status.
18. The method of claim 17 , wherein when the switch is on-network, the switch routes the packetized signal from the packet network to a second packet network.
19. The method of claim 17 , wherein when the switch is off-network, the switch routes the packetized signal from the packet network to a telephone network.
20. The method of claim 19 , wherein the telephone network is a publicly switched telephone network.
Cooperative Patent Classification codes for this invention. Click any code to explore related patents in that topic.
November 7, 2008
February 28, 2012
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